Allan Cassels

Alan Cassels, a drug policy researcher at the University of Victoria, has spent the last 16 years studying how clinical research and experience on pharmaceuticals is translated for policy-makers, prescribers and consumers. He led a team of Canadian researchers to carry out the first ever study of Canadian newspaper coverage of new prescription drugs (Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2003) and has frequently reported on consumer health issues for magazines, newspapers and the CBC Radio program IDEAS. He co-authored with Ray Moynihan Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning us All into Patients, about the role of the ethical drug industry in underwriting the creation and marketing of illness. Hisnewest book is The ABC’s of Disease Mongering: An Epidemic in 26 letters (Emdash Book Publishing, 2007).